dimanche 6 juillet 2014

Animals that don't Exist

The Lazy Fly

The
lazy fly, Musca ignavus, is one of
the most annoying animals on the planet. And not as lazy as its name might
indicate. Like all the members of the order Diptera,
the lazy fly has only two wings. In most of the species of this order, the
second pair of wings have been atrophied, and serve as gyroscopes to keep the
flying of the insect as steady and precise as possible. This evolution alone is
already an impressive feat of natural selection. But the lazy fly has taken
things to another level.

Where
most diptera use the rapid circular
motions of their modified wings for flying, the lazy fly uses it to produce
sound. It can emit frequencies between 160 and 230 Hertz. A common housefly, Musca domestica, has a wing-beat of 200
Hertz, but due to the doppler effect, the effective range of sound we perceive
is the same as the one emitted by the lazy fly. Except that the lazy fly does
not need to fly to produce sound. The modified wings allow it to project sound
around itself in a four-meter radius, effectively tricking people into
believing there is a fly buzzing around, when the culprit is sitting on your
toast, sucking up the jam.

The
lazy fly is a master at misdirection, tricking its enemies into searching for
it where it is not, projecting sound into the distance to distract its
predators while it is having lunch. However, the lazy fly cannot project this
sound when it is actually flying, since it has to use its modified wings to
stabilize itself. In those moments, the buzzing is twice as loud as that of a
normal housefly, the sound coming from both actual and modified wings. This
makes the lazy fly an easily identifiable target when in flight, and is
presumed to be one of the reasons why it so seldom takes to the air. Which is
how it got its name.

Despite
the lazy aspect of the fly, which seems to sit around eating while it lets its
sound do the actual flying, the production of said frequencies, as well as the
precision with which they are projected around the room, require and immense
amount of energy. More so than that used by common houseflies to fly around.

The
sound-projection capabilities of the fly have recently been analyzed by a group
of scientists at the University of Tandenburg. Their results suggest that the
modified wings of the lazy fly are the most sophisticated sound-projection
system to be found to date, and efforts are under way to analyze and imitate its
mechanisms. But the uniqueness of this sound-producing insect has been
harnessed since ages past.

It
is believed that European tribes have been using the lazy fly as an instrument
since as far back as 16'000 B.C. Illustrations found in the Lascaux-cave, in
France, suggest that during certain rituals, scraps of food were put in a small
indent in the wall with peculiar acoustics. Once the fly was inside, feasting
on the food while emitting its confusing buzzing sound, the physical structure
of the cave amplified the sound, and a clever arrangement of rocks and pieces
of wood or animal skin were used to modify the pitch, thus creating one of the
first musical instruments known to men. And powered by a fly.

Evidence
of similar usage of the fly have been appearing around the world, from the
Aboriginal fly-flute (a hollowed-out piece of wood with a number of holes that
could be open or closed) to the African buzz-bass (an empty calabash with a
number of holes on one end, which, again, could be opened or closed to modify
pitch). More recently, the fly has become a symbol of music for some, most
notorious among them the band "Red Hot Chilli Peppers", which
featured a picture of the fly on their 2011 album "I'm With You".